If we suppose that the Pre-Chellean flint workers arrived in Europe not earlier than Third Interglacial times, we can explain all the gradations in the evolution of their implements in connection with the changes of climate and of animal life which the geologic and fossil deposits reveal, especially in the valleys of the Somme and of the Thames.

If, on the other hand, the Pre-Chellean is dated in Second Interglacial times,[U] it carries this culture back another hundred thousand years and involves our prehistory in great difficulties. First, there is no proof whatever that the Pre-Chellean and Chellean flint workers lived during the period of the formation of the 'high river terraces' of the third glaciation, for no Palæolithic flints have ever been found buried in the sands or gravels of the 'high terraces.' The occurrence of archaic flints on the 'high terraces' of the Somme and of the Seine is in superficial gravel beds which were deposited long after these 'terraces' had been cut by river action; this is best seen in the Somme, where archaic flints occur alike in the gravels deposited upon the 'low,' 'middle,' and 'high terraces.' Second, there is no proof that the Pre-Chellean and Chellean flint workers passed through the cold climatic period of the third glaciation; nowhere in Europe have any records been found of their camps or stations in association with the cold fauna or flora of Third Glacial times. Third, the geographical evidence is equally at variance with the theory that the Pre-Chellean flint workers entered Europe during the Second Interglacial Stage, for we know positively that in many of the great river-valleys of Europe, especially those surrounding the Alps, the rivers were at much higher levels than at present and that they were transporting the materials out of which the 'high terraces' were being formed or cutting these 'terraces' down by erosion.

In other words, the geography of Europe in First and Second Interglacial times was very different from what it is at present; most of the river-valleys were broader and less deep; some of them had been eroded to a point below their present levels and had begun to silt up in alluvial deposits. In Third Interglacial times the river geography of Europe was substantially as it is to-day, although the coast-lines were still very different.

When Pre-Chellean man appeared, we shall see that the river-valleys of the Somme and Marne, in northern France, as well as of the Thames, in southeastern England, were closely similar to what they are at present in respect to their water-levels; in other words, the inland geography of Europe in the north in Chellean times and in central and southern France in the immediately succeeding Acheulean times was very much like it is at present. The superficial characters of the valleys were different; the streams in Chellean times flowed through gravels and sands, partaking of a glacial aspect; one or more of the 'river terraces' composed of sands and gravels were still sharply defined, for the soft covering of 'loam' and alluvial soil from the surrounding uplands and hills had not yet washed down to soften the outlines of the 'terraces.' Neither were the 'terraces' covered with the newer deposits of 'loess.'

Secular Changes of Climate in Lower Palæolithic Times

We find evidences of four climatic and life phases during the long period of Lower Palæolithic evolution, as follows:

It is believed that the climate of Third Interglacial times when it reached its maximum warmth was again somewhat milder than the present climate in the same region. In the Alps the glaciers and the snow-line retreated once more to their present levels. The period opened with humid continental conditions. The areas left bare by the ice were gradually reforested. A picture of the climate in this warm period is presented in the region near Paris in the so-called tuf de La Celle-sous-Moret (Seine-et-Marne). This tufa, which is a hot-springs deposit, overlies river-gravels of Pleistocene age.(7) The lower levels of the tufa contain the sycamore-maple (Acer pseudoplatanus), willows, and the Austrian pine, indicating a temperate climate. Higher up in the same deposits we find evidences of increasingly mild temperatures in the presence of the box (Buxus) and not infrequently of the fig-tree; the Canary laurel (Laurus nobilis) is somewhat rarer and both it and the fig indicate that the winters were mild, because these plants have the peculiarity of flowering during the winter season; we infer, therefore, that the climate was somewhat milder and more damp than it is in the same region at the present time. The mollusks also indicate greater equability of climate. These deposits are believed to correspond with the period of Chellean and early Acheulean industry.

The plants in the highest levels of the same tufa, however, indicate the advent of a colder climate and also connect this with the Acheulean culture stage through the presence of Acheulean flints. The deposit of tufa is covered by a sheet of 'loess' corresponding with the return of an arid period in late Acheulean times, in the very heart of northern France. Thus we have a record in the region near the present city of Paris of three climatic phases, which are also more or less completely indicated in deposits to the north along the River Somme and in the valley of the ancient Thames.

In western France we again interpret the fossil flora of Lorraine as belonging to the cooler closing period of Third Interglacial times and to the advent of the fourth glaciation, for here the most northern varieties of the larch (Larix) and of the mountain-pine (Pinus lambertiana) predominate.

The clearest view of the contemporary alpine forests is found near Zürich in the lignitic deposits of Dürnten and of Utznach, which are so characteristic of the temperate period of the Third Interglacial Stage that Geikie has proposed to call this stage the Dürntenian.(8) It was, we recall, at Dürnten that Morlot(9) found the first proofs of a warm or temperate interglacial flora, between the deposits of a retreating glacier and those of an advancing glacier; for Dürnten is well within the region which was covered by the vast ice-fields both of the third and fourth glaciations. The forests which flourished there in Third Interglacial times were similar to those now found in the same region, consisting of the spruce, fir, mountain-pine, larch, beech, yew, and sycamore, with undergrowth of hazel. With this hardy flora are associated the remains of the straight-tusked elephant, of Merck's rhinoceros, of wild cattle, and of the stag; another evidence for our opinion that all these Asiatic mammals had become habituated to the cool temperate climate of the north.

Life on the River Somme from Pre-Chellean to Neolithic Times

The borders of the River Somme at St. Acheul give us a vista of the whole story of the succession of geologic events; the great changes of climate, the procession of animal life, the sequence of human races and cultures. Here Commont(10) has found the key to the history of this entire country and enabled us to parallel events here with those occurring far away in Taubach, on the borders of the Thuringian forest, and at Krems in Lower Austria, as studied by Obermaier. This is because the 'older' and 'newer' loess periods, the succession of climates and of mammals, and the development of human cultures were all not local but continental events. The purely local events are found in the kinds of gravels and soils which washed down over the terraces.

It is very important first to clearly picture in our minds and understand the geography of the Somme at the time of the arrival of the Pre-Chellean flint workers. It appears certain that all three of the old river terraces composed of limestone had been cut long before and that the river had already reached the bottom level of the underlying chalk rock.(11) The higher terrace, then as now, was 100 feet above the Somme, the middle terrace about 70 feet, and the lowest terrace extended from a height of about 40 feet down underneath the present river level (see Fig. 59).

Since the most primitive Pre-Chellean flints occur in the coarse gravels which lie on the floors of these terraces immediately above the chalk, they prove that the entire excavation of the valley had been completed when the Pre-Chellean workers arrived there. Commont believes that this was the actual topography of the valley during the Third Interglacial Stage. The occurrence of Chellean flints in the white sands overlying the coarse gravels of the middle and upper terraces does not indicate that the flint workers were encamped here while these terraces were being cut out by the River Somme but rather that they sought these convenient bluffs for their quarries during the time that these sands and gravels were washing down from the sides of the valleys and from the plateaus above.

The history of the climatic changes in the ancient valley of the Somme is most clearly written in these successive deposits, 15 feet in thickness, above the 'lower gravels' at St. Acheul. Along with the Pre-Chellean and Chellean flints in the 'old gravels' and 'white sands' we find records of the moist warm temperate climate which then prevailed in northern France and which undoubtedly was most favorable to the hippopotami, rhinoceroses, and elephants of those times. The river mollusks found with the late Chellean flints are another indication of the temperate forest climate which continued through early Acheulean times.

In the middle Acheulean are found the earliest deposits of 'older loess' which indicate a climate still temperate but arid, belonging to the middle of the Third Interglacial Stage. In Mousterian times we find heavy deposits of gravels corresponding to the moist cold climate of the Fourth Glacial Stage, followed in middle Aurignacian times by fresh layers of 'newer loess,' indicating the return of a dry climate. Finally, the layers of loam which were washed down over the sides of the valley, and in which the remains of Solutrean and Aurignacian camps are found, indicate the renewal of moist and probably forested conditions.

Thus, two dry loess periods are indicated in this valley, the first or 'older loess' belonging to Third Interglacial times, and the second or 'newer loess' to Postglacial times; and we clearly perceive that in the culture layers here there is no evidence whatever of more than one glacial stage preceded by a dry climatic period and deposits of loess. If the Pre-Chellean flint workers had arrived in this river-valley as early as Second Interglacial times, we should find proofs of three periods of arid climate and loess deposition and of two glaciations.

Beginning with middle Acheulean times the flints are found in deposits of gravels, loams, brick-earths, and 'older loess,' which all belong to a succeeding geologic stage and are of more recent date than the lower gravels and sands on the terraces which they overlap and conceal. Deposits of this kind have also been drifted down from the highest levels toward the bottom of the valley, and Commont distinguishes three different depositions or layers of 'loess loam,' the lowest or oldest of which contain Acheulean flints, while the middle loams contain Mousterian implements.

Even toward the close of the Third Interglacial Stage there were periods of warmth, perhaps during the height of the hot summer season, when animals of the warm fauna migrated from the south. Thus Commont has recently discovered in the valley of the Somme a station of Mousterian flint workers, whose industry is associated with remains of the three animals typical of the warmer climatic phase; namely, the straight-tusked elephant, the broad-nosed rhinoceros, and the hippopotamus. He has reaffirmed his belief that the greater part of this chapter of human prehistory, both as to the surface topography of the Somme valley and the evolution of the flint cultures from Pre-Chellean to Mousterian times, occurred during the Third Interglacial Stage.

The Early Warm Temperate Period of the Pre-Chellean Culture[V]

We have observed that from Torralba in the Province of Soria, Spain, to Abbeville, near the mouth of the Somme, in the north of France, three types of animals which entered Europe as early as Upper Pliocene times, namely, the Etruscan rhinoceros, the horse of Steno, and the sabre-tooth tiger, are said to occur in connection with early Chellean artifacts. The two former species may possibly be confused with early forms of Merck's rhinoceros and the true forest horses of Europe, but there can be no question as to the identification of the sabre-tooth tiger, numbers of which were found by M. d'Ault du Mesnil, at Abbeville, on the Somme, with early Chellean flints.

The mammalian life of the Somme at this time, as found in the gisement du Champ de Mars near Abbeville, is very rich. Among the larger forms there is certainly the great southern mammoth (E. meridionalis trogontherii), and possibly also the straight-tusked elephant (E. antiquus). There are unquestionably two species of rhinoceros, the smaller of which is recognized by Boule as the Etruscan, and the larger as Merck's rhinoceros. Steno's horse is said to occur here, and there are abundant remains of the great hippopotamus (H. major); the sabre-tooth tigers were very numerous as attested by the discovery of the lower jaws of thirty or more individuals. The short-faced hyæna (H. brevirostris) is also found, and there are several species of deer and wild cattle.

This remarkably rich collection of mammals is associated with flints of primitive Chellean or, possibly, of Pre-Chellean type.(12) In Torralba, Spain, the same very ancient animals occur, and it appears possible that this was the prevailing mammalian life of Pre-Chellean times.

We may conclude, therefore, that there is considerable evidence, although not as yet quite convincing, that the early Chellean flint workers arrived in western Europe before the disappearance of the Etruscan rhinoceros and the sabre-tooth tiger.

The Pre-Chellean Stations

(See Figs. 53 and 56.)

The dawn of the Palæolithic Age is indicated in various river-drift stations by the appearance of crude flint weapons as well as tools or implements, in addition to the supposed tools of Eolithic times. There is an unmistakable effort to fashion the flint into a definite shape to serve a definite purpose: there can no longer be any question of human handiwork. Thus there gradually arise various types of flints, each of which undergoes its own evolution into a more perfect form. Naturally, the workers at some stations were more adept and inventive than at others. Nevertheless, the primitive stages of invention and of technique were carried from station to station; and thus for the first time we are enabled to establish the archæological age of various stations in western Europe.

Only a few stations have been discovered where the Palæolithic men were first fashioning their flints into prototypes of the Chellean and Acheulean forms. With relation to the theory that these primitive flint workers may have entered Europe by way of the northern coast of Africa, we observe that these stations are confined to Spain, southern and northern France, Belgium, and Great Britain. Neither Pre-Chellean nor Chellean stations of unquestioned authenticity have been found in Germany or central Europe, and, so far as present evidence goes, it would appear that the Pre-Chellean culture did not enter Europe directly from the east, or even along the northern coast of the Mediterranean, but rather along the northern coast of Africa,[W] where Chellean culture is recorded in association with mammalian remains belonging to the middle Pleistocene Epoch.

The southernmost stations of Chellean culture at present known in Europe are those of Torralba and San Isidro, in central Spain. In the Department of the Gironde is the Chellean station of Marignac, and it is not unlikely that other stations will be discovered in the same region, because the Palæolithic races strongly favored the valleys of the Dordogne and Garonne, but thus far this is the only station known in southern France which represents this period of the dawn of human culture.

The chief Pre-Chellean and Chellean stations were clustered along the valleys of the Somme and Seine. Of those rare sites presenting a typical Pre-Chellean culture, we may note the neighboring stations of St. Acheul and Montières, both in the suburbs of Amiens on the Somme, and the station of Helin, near Spiennes, in Belgium, explored by Rutot. A very primitive and possibly Pre-Chellean culture was found on the site of the Champ de Mars, at Abbeville. This culture also extended westward across the broad plain which is now the Strait of Dover to the valley of the Thames, on whose northern bank is the important station of Gray's Thurrock, while farther to the south is the recently discovered site of Piltdown, in the valley of the Ouse, Sussex.

The flint tools (Fig. 60) found in the layer immediately overlying the Piltdown skull are excessively primitive and indicate that the Piltdown flint workers had not attained the stage of craftsmanship described by Commont as 'Pre-Chellean' at St. Acheul. "Among the flints," observes Dawson, "we found several undoubted flint implements besides numerous 'eoliths.' The workmanship of the former is similar to that of the Chellean or Pre-Chellean stage; but in the majority of the Piltdown specimens the work appears chiefly on one face of the implements."

In the Helin quarry near Spiennes(13) occur rude prototypes of the Palæolithic coup de poing associated with numerous flakes which do not greatly differ from those in the lowest river-gravels of St. Acheul; there is a close correspondence in the workmanship of the two sites, so that we may regard the Mesvinian of Rutot[X] as a culture stage equivalent to the Pre-Chellean. The river-gravels and sands of Helin which contain the implements also resemble those of St. Acheul in their order of stratification. Of special interest is the fact that a primitive flint from this Helin quarry, known as the 'borer,' is strikingly similar to the 'Eolithic' borer found in the same layer with the Piltdown skull in Sussex. By such indications as this, when strengthened by further evidence of the same kind, we may be able eventually to establish the date both of this Pre-Chellean or Mesvinian culture and of the Piltdown race.

In considering the Pre-Chellean implements found at St. Acheul in 1906, we note(14) that at this dawning stage of human invention the flint workers were not deliberately designing the form of their implements but were dealing rather with the chance shapes of shattered blocks of flint, seeking with a few well-directed blows to produce a sharp point or a good cutting edge. This was the beginning of the art of 'retouch,' which was done by means of light blows with a second stone instead of the hammer-stone with which the rough flakes were first knocked off. The retouch served a double purpose: Its first and most important object was further to sharpen the point or edge of the tool. This was done by chipping off small flakes from the upper side, so as to give the flint a saw-like edge. Its second object was to protect the hand of the user by blunting any sharp edges or points which might prevent a firm grip of the implement. Often the smooth, rounded end of the flint nodule, with crust intact, is carefully preserved for this purpose (Fig. 61). It is this grasping of the primitive tool by the hand to which the terms 'coup de poing,' 'Faustkeil,' and 'hand-axe' refer. 'Hand-stone' is, perhaps, the most fitting designation in our language, but it appears best to retain the original French designation, coup de poing.

As the shape of the flint is purely due to chance, these Pre-Chellean implements are interpreted by archæologists chiefly according to the manner of retouch they have received. Already they are adapted to quite a variety of purposes, both as weapons of the chase and for trimming and shaping wooden implements and dressing hides. Thus Obermaier observes that the concave, serrated edges characteristic of some of these implements may well have been used for scraping the bark from branches and smoothing them down into poles; that the rough coups de poing would be well adapted to dividing flesh and dressing hides; that the sharp-pointed fragments could be used as borers, and others that are clumsier and heavier as planes (see Fig. 62).

The inventory of these ancestral Pre-Chellean forms of implements, used in industrial and domestic life, in the chase, and in war, is as follows:

Grattoir, planing tool.
Racloir, scraper.
Perçoir, drill, borer.
Couteau, knife.
Percuteur, hammer-stone.
Pierre de jet? throwing stone?
Prototypes of coup de poing, hand-stone.

It includes five, possibly six, chief types. The true coup de poing, a combination tool of Chellean times, is not yet developed in the Pre-Chellean, and the other implements, although similar in form, are more primitive. They are all in an experimental stage of development.

Indications that this primitive industry spread over southeastern England as well, and that a succession of Pre-Chellean into Chellean culture may be demonstrated, occur in connection with the recent discovery of the very ancient Piltdown race.

The Piltdown Race(15)

The 'dawn man' is the most ancient human type in which the form of the head and size of the brain are known. Its anatomy, as well as its geologic antiquity, is therefore of profound interest and worthy of very full consideration. We may first review the authors' narrative of this remarkable discovery and the history of opinion concerning it.

Piltdown, Sussex, lies between two branches of the Ouse, about 35 miles south and slightly to the east of Gray's Thurrock, the Chellean station of the Thames. To the east is the plateau of Kent, in which many flints of Eolithic type have been found.

The gravel layer in which the Piltdown skull occurred is situated on a well-defined plateau of large area and lies about 80 feet above the level of the main stream of the Ouse. Remnants of the flint-bearing gravels and drifts occur upon the plateau and the slopes down which they trail toward the river and streams. This region was undoubtedly favorable to the flint workers of Pre-Chellean and Chellean times. Kennard(16) believes that the gravels are of the same age as those of the 'high terrace' of the lower valley of the Thames; the height above the stream level is practically the same, namely, about 80 feet. Another geologist, Clement Reid,(17) holds that the plateau, composed of Wealden chalk, through which flowed the stream bearing the Piltdown gravels, belongs to a period later than that of the maximum depression of Great Britain; that the deposits are of Pre-Glacial or early Pleistocene age; that they belong to the epoch after the cold period of the first glaciation had passed but occur at the very base of the succession of implement-bearing deposits in the southeast of England.

On the other hand, Dawson,(18) the discoverer of the Piltdown skull, in his first description states: "From these facts it appears probable that the skull and mandible cannot safely be described as being of earlier date than the first half of the Pleistocene Epoch. The individual probably lived during the warm cycle in that age."

The section of the gravel bed (Fig. 64) indicates that the remains of the Piltdown man were washed down with other fossils by a shallow stream charged with dark-brown gravel and unworked flints; some of these fossils were of Pliocene times from strata of the upper parts of the stream. In this channel were found the remains of a number of animals of the same age as the Piltdown man, a few flints resembling eoliths, and one very primitive worked flint of Pre-Chellean type, which may also have been washed down from deposits of earlier age. These precious geologic and archæologic records furnish the only means we have of determining the age of Eoanthropus, the 'dawn man,' one of the most important and significant discoveries in the whole history of anthropology. We are indebted to the geologist Charles Dawson and the palæontologist Arthur Smith Woodward for preserving these ancient records and describing them with great fulness and accuracy as follows (pp. 132 to 139):

Several years ago Dawson discovered a small portion of an unusually thick human parietal bone, taken from a gravel bed which was being dug for road-making purposes on a farm close to Piltdown Common. In the autumn of 1911 he picked up among the rain-washed spoil-heaps of the same gravel-pit another and larger piece of bone belonging to the forehead region of the same skull and including a portion of the ridge extending over the left eyebrow. Immediately impressed with the importance of this discovery, Dawson enlisted the co-operation of Smith Woodward, and a systematic search was made in these spoil-heaps and gravels, beginning in the spring of 1912; all the material was looked over and carefully sifted. It appears that the whole or greater part of the human skull had been scattered by the workmen, who had thrown away the pieces unnoticed. Thorough search in the bottom of the gravel bed itself revealed the right half of a jaw, which was found in a depression of undisturbed, finely stratified gravel, so far as could be judged on the spot identical with that from which the first portions of the cranium were exhumed. A yard from the jaw an important piece of the occipital bone of the skull was found. Search was renewed in 1913 by Father P. Teilhard, of Chardin, a French anthropologist, who fortunately recovered a single canine tooth, and later a pair of nasal bones were found, all of which fragments are of very great significance in the restoration of the skull.

The jaw appears to have been broken at the symphysis, and somewhat abraded, perhaps after being caught in the gravel before it was completely covered with sand. The fragments of the cranium show little or no signs of stream rolling or other abrasion save an incision caused by the workman's pick.

Analysis of the bones showed that the skull was in a condition of fossilization, no gelatine or organic matter remained, and mingled with a large proportion of the phosphates, originally present, was a considerable proportion of iron.[Y]

The dark gravel bed (Fig. 64, layer 3), 18 inches in thickness, at the bottom of which the skull and jaw were found, contained a number of fossils which manifestly were not of the same age as the skull but were certainly from Pliocene deposits up-stream; these included the water-vole and remains of the mastodon, the southern mammoth, the hippopotamus, and a fragment of the grinding-tooth of a primitive elephant, resembling Stegodon. In the spoil-heaps, from which it is believed the skull of the Piltdown man was taken, were found an upper tooth of a rhinoceros, either of the Etruscan or of Merck's type; the tooth of a beaver and of a hippopotamus, and the leg-bone of a deer, which may have been cut or incised by man. Much more distinctive was a single flint (Fig. 65), worked only on one side, of the very primitive or Pre-Chellean type. Implements of this stage, as the author observes, are difficult to classify with certainty, owing to the rudeness of their workmanship; they resemble certain rude implements occasionally found on the surface of the chalk downs near Piltdown. The majority of the flints found in the gravel were worked only on one face; their form is thick, and the flaking is broad and sparing; the original surface of the flint is left in a smooth, natural condition at the point grasped by the hand; the whole implement thus has a very rude and massive form. These flints appear to be of even more primitive form than those at St. Acheul described as Pre-Chellean by Commont.

The eoliths found in the gravel-pit and in the adjacent fields are of the 'borer' and 'hollow-scraper' forms; also, some are of the 'crescent-shaped-scraper' type, mostly rolled and water-worn, as if transported from a distance. This is a stream or river bed, not a Palæolithic quarry.

There can be little doubt, however, that the Piltdown man belonged to a period when the flint industry was in a very primitive stage, antecedent to the true Chellean. It has subsequently been observed that the gravel strata(3) containing the Piltdown man were deeper than the higher stratum containing flints nearer the Chellean type.

The discovery of this skull aroused as great or greater interest even than that attending the discovery of the two other 'river-drift' races, the Trinil and the Heidelberg. In this discussion the most distinguished anatomists of Great Britain, Arthur Smith Woodward, Elliot Smith, and Arthur Keith, took part, and finally the original pieces were re-examined by three anatomists of this country.[Z]